Mid-Day Mollycoddles Tarun Tejpal on his “Grave Error” (Read Rape)

Mid-Day belittled the crimes of Tarun Tejpal, calling the media outrage over him excessive.

Tarun Tejpal. (Photo Courtesy: The News Minute)

A crime is a crime, except when it’s committed by the elite. Then the crime is only a “grave error”. Or so Tarun Tejpal’s defenders think. Tejpal, who is the former editor of Tehelka was charged with a “grave error” (read: rape) by a colleague. He is currently facing trial in a court in Goa and is out on bail.

Except Malavika Sangghvi, in her column Malavika’s Mumbai:The Daily Dish on Mumbai daily Mid-Day suggests “Time for a RE-THINK?” because although this so called error gave his “detractors ammunition to demolish him, was there really need for such a vociferous dragging through the coals?”

Malavika Sangghvi’s column on Mid-Day. (Photo Courtesy: The News Minute)

Even when the incident had occurred, most of Sangghvi’s elite friends had defended his cherubic innocence. Some painted him as the victim, others criticised the reportage it got, hinting that it was far too much. But it is never a matter of comparison between two incidents of sexual violence. There’s never such a thing called too much attention.

Sangghvi too with her carelessly playful sarcasm not only defended Tejpal’s shameful actions but also defended rape culture the manifestation of which we have seen in TERI board member’s awkward silence on RK Pachauri’s cases of sexual harassment charged by several, not one but several female colleagues and the alleged Stanford rapist Brock Turner’s father saying that his son’s trial is a “steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action”.

Very thoughtlessly she belittled the fight against this rape culture, by terming the very legitimate concern as the rule of “regressive thoughts and actions” and an “excessive media campaign”.

In fact, Sangghvi even playfully went on informing readers about the new “high profile” prospects that will rehabilitate this “once darling of the intelligentsia”, whose life was marred by media campaigns.

There’s a strange misinformed understanding in Sangghvi’s ideas of “liberalism”. Certainly “strong liberal voices” are muffled more often than you would expect – as is seen in the treatment of ongoing controversies around beef eating, freedom of speech in universities and censorship in India. But liberalism is in no way connected to defending a criminal.